I received a request from one my clients that he wants me to brush stroke the canvas so it mimics a real oil painting.I did it once with some acrylic gel varnish it worked out OK on a small canvas but the request is for a big canvas.I would like to have experienced professionals guide me how to do it, what type of acrylics/gels or coatings, brushes etc and where to get them.

the good news is that this is an "artistic" process so the results can vary widely - your client should be made aware of that too.If you pick up some Golden Acrylic Gell medium you can brush a clear coat of varying thickness over the work. to really get much of anything to show you'll want their thickest offering and you'll be able to do your work quickly without a thousand coats. Most painters I know use it to thicken paint for a cool textural effect. most of the photogs I know either use a program like Painter Pro (to create an effect I largely find completely lacking in taste) or use actual paint (with or without a thickening medium) to add to/embelish the photo. you may want to combine both so it looks like whatever texture you add grew out of the photo instead of having smooth areas of photo and areas of added paint work.

either way you should make them aware that it's a totally custom process done to your professional judgement. you may also want to adjust prices to reflect the possibility of scrapping a piece and starting over if you don't like it. pre-selling something like this is tough since you don't know how many you'll do before you get one you want to sell or how long it will take.

Iíve done this in a couple of experiments. With Glamour 2 as example, do the usual application process and then wait until the goo is fairly well set up and then add some fresh G2 on a brush and paint to your pleasure. The result gives a built up look and also definitive brush strokes. Whatís cool about this approach is that the brush strokes tend to not show so much on the freshly applied surface but in the part that has partially set up before the application.

Do some tests, keep track of the time between the first application and the add on. With some testing youíll find the optimum time frame to get the texture youíre after.

Don't bother with a gel,do the brushstroking in a program, (your choice of many). If the canvas is large it will have the 3d appearance from a distance anyway.That way you can have your customer approve the "look" before you even print!!

I use canvas for the same reason painters use canvas. I can thereby create very large pieces that are light enough to be manageable both physically and economically. And I frame them in traditional frames because that's the easiest way to present them, given my resources. But I draw the line at texturing. One has to ask the question...are we doing big photos by expedient means, or are we trying to simulate painting?

I like to create imagery. I prefer to let the physical qualities of the image be those of the media, optimally exploited. Things like texturing are needless affectations, not that different say from black sectional frames and 8 ply mattes, which were at one time themselves a means of avoiding affectation. Say what?

Anyway, Z-Gel is one way to commit the crime, at around $80 per gallon. Really thick out of the can and your canvas will look like a relief map of the Himalayas in not time at all. But when the Art Trials begin, I never heard of you.

Putting aesthetics aside, from a strictly marketing point of view I don't think texturing is worth it if yer out there trying to schlep art. It may have a small audience at the kind of venues where Novelty trumps Art, but it may also put off more sophisticated buyers with actual money in their pockets.

And regaining aesthetics, it's interesting how many oil paintings show no canvas texture at all and very little paint texture AKA impasto.

Oh, BTW, if you want to texture canvas coming out of an 8300, be sure to put down about two thin coats of acrylic first. I actually tried some of the Z-Gel stuff on giclee prints of my wife's paintings. Let's just say it's a very effective solvent on bare ink. Proved impractical to do at any scale.

I've seen the brush-over effect quite often here in the AZ art shows. Like any other effect it can be done well or done poorly. Lots of aspiring art show photographers do it to be different. Also see pinhole, panoramic, HDR, techniques to enhance poor photographic content. Also lots of painters will brush clear gel onto canvas copies of their work to give it less than a flat inkjet look.

I was taking on the viewpoint of a kind of customer one frequently encounters in the field. One has two choices...disengage or swipe their credit cards. It's that simple.

Many here may feel statements like that offend Art. But in the absence of any reasonable definition of Art, I no longer humor myself with a self-congratulating sacramental attitude towards that ephemeral concept. And in that spirit I give a thumbs-up to anybody who manages to make a living by any means involving photography, even to those with fingers still sticky with Z-Gel.

But OK. Can somebody answer either of these questions with rational statements...

1. Exactly what's wrong with enhanced canvases?

2. What physical forms are acceptable for presenting photography, and why?

bill t, I tip my hat also to anyone making sales in photography no matter how thick the gel or how noisy the 48x60 canvas. I have even found a market for my "seconds" that include lousily sealed (by me) canvasses and test paper prints that I wouldn't care to show to my galleries. After a year or so all my unsold work is donated to various senior center resale shops to be sold for .50 and up. If I could sell landscape images on my micro-stock sites for .25 I'd do so.So I'll answer your questions:1. Nothing2. Any